Spring ISD to unveil its strategic plan
Superintendent is ready to outline steps district needs to build successful future
Spring ISD Superintendent Rodney Watson is planning to unveil his much anticipated five-year strategic plan to the Spring ISD board of trustees tonight.
The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. and will be at Fallbrook Church, 12512 Walters Road in Houston.
Watson, who assumed his role as superintendent last summer, began the process of developing the plan in July, shortly after the district received its comprehensive annual report.
“Unfortunately, declines in student achievement over the past decade, combined with information uncovered in recent audits, clearly reveal the need for strategic change — a new direction,” Watson said. “The plan we will unveil for the community on May 21 is an aggressive five-year plan that responds to that need.”
The use of strategic plans is not new to school districts, nor to Spring ISD, which has had one in place since 1982. However, the December comprehensive report seemed to show the district’s plan had some holes.
The report indicated that the district needed a strong strategic plan that includes a five year plan of excellence,
but also called for the creation of board monitoring system that would gauge student progress and departmental activities; and create access practices that hold leadership and administrators accountable for student success.
In January, Watson began a series of listening tours, and began talking in depth with community leaders, parents, teachers, students and members of the board of trustees in an effort to ascertain the needs of the district, and the best course of action to implement the strategic plan.
“The board of trustees has been involved at every level of the planning that has taken place over the past ten months,” said Spring ISD board president Rhonda Faust. “We are very pleased with the outcome and are looking forward to sharing it with the community on May 21.”
Since Spring ISD completed an internal investigation earlier this year that showed significant course scheduling and transcript errors for hundreds of students going back to 2008-09, the district is particularly concerned with putting in place higher standards.
Officials at the district of more than 36,000 students revealed earlier this year that the scheduling and recording problems affected students in more than onethird of the anticipated graduating class across three high schools: Spring, Dekaney and Westfield.
The problems include students receiving credit for courses they hadn’t taken or repeatedly taking the same course despite passing each time.
Those errors have led to Watson initiating termination proceedings against three employees. Eight others have resigned amid the investigation.
The investigation’s findings have also drawn increased scrutiny from the Texas Education Agency, which may open a special accreditation investigation of the district.
The problems had endangered graduation for almost 600 students, according to the district. About 60 students are now not expected to graduate, largely because they did not have enough credits to be considered seniors.
Watson has held more than 100 group and oneon-one discussions with key representatives and has conducted more than 125 campus visits.
Additionally, more than 200 strategic planning work-group sessions hours have been invested, with more than 150 community stakeholders participating in weekly, intensive three-hour work sessions over a two-month period.
“Our strategic plan is not about one area or one child. It is about every child and the impact we as a district can have on them, and they in turn can have on our community,” Faust added.
On May 1, Watson provided a glimpse of the new plan during the district’s annual Career Technology Education Advisory Board scholarship luncheon.
“We have identified initiatives that are focused on our belief in the potential of every child, that literacy is the foundation for academic success, that lowperforming schools can become high-performing schools and that Spring ISD can regain its status as a district of choice in Northwest Houston,” Watson said.